Sleuths In Suits: Mission: Intelligence

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Both occupations have boomed over the past several years. According to Brian Ruttenbur, senior vice president of MORGAN KEEGAN, an investment firm based in Memphis, spending on business intelligence and security has swelled to $7 billion annually, from $1.8 billion in 1980, and should double in the next seven years, spurred in part by the Sept. 11 attacks. While it is difficult to quantify spending on competitive intelligence because the industry is so diffuse, membership in the Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals (SCIP) has risen to nearly 7,000, from 1,550 in 1990, and the overall market for business intelligence--excluding mundane stuff such as security guards, cameras and fences--has been reported to be $2 billion. And just as the attacks of Sept. 11 are forcing a transformation of government intelligence, so too could they make over corporate intelligence.

Security concerns aren't new, of course. Oil companies have pumped petroleum out of the Middle East for the better part of a century; they did not need to be told that the region could be dangerous. The same can be said of the insurance industry, which has been ratcheting up rates since the U.S. terror attacks, in the face of wildly higher demand for political-risk coverage. "No light bulb went off on Sept. 11," says Patricia Skold, who is head of CHUBB GROUP's political risk worldwide and has experience working for the U.S. intelligence community. "We've always been aware of the risk." But some of Chubb's new customers and those of its competitors suddenly had their awareness raised. Chubb, which has employed terrorism experts for at least seven years, has received 1,500 applications for political-risk coverage since Sept. 11--double the rate for the same period a year earlier.

Businesses with long-standing interests overseas often seem to know more about the sociopolitical texture of international hot spots than even the U.S. government. Robert Baer, author of See No Evil, which recounts his 20 years as a CIA agent, points to business's relative freedom from the legal and bureaucratic obstacles that circumscribe government intelligence as an important advantage. Since leaving the CIA, Baer has done occasional investigative work for private interests and says, "My access to information is better since I got out of the CIA."

Businesses today can turn to full-service intelligence and security companies, such as PINKERTON, KROLL or CONTROL RISKS GROUP, which can do everything from evaluating a government's general stability to investigating the background of a potential business partner to managing hostage negotiations with a terrorist group. But boutique firms, often staffed by former government-intelligence hands, have flourished by carving out specialized niches and frequently outdoing the big boys. Business executives can subscribe to the many newsletters focused on specific regions or industries, or have an intelligence firm prepare a report tailored to answer almost any question.